the President addressed a farewell to the burghers, assuring them that
God's aid could confidently be implored for their just cause; he also
quoted part of the Verse, "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall
lose it," intending it as an exhortation for the timorous, warning them
of the greater danger incurred by retreat or flight than when
maintaining a manful stand. (The reader will know that the above
quotation does not complete the verse, the rest being, "But whosoever
shall lose his life for my sake or for the Gospel shall preserve it.")

It points to the operation of most persevering and subtle agencies and
potent illusions that could mislead and carry away the chief men and the
most intelligent of the Boer nation so far as to engender the erroneous
convictions which caused them to court the present war and to consider
it just. As to the bulk of the people, they are in turn led astray by
their leaders' example and opinions as victims of the general delusion.

These convictions, together with the acceptance of Afrikaner Bond
doctrines, have developed into quite a national infatuation, a kind of
Boer Koran, invested with similar fanaticism. Analogies are assumed as
existing between the case of the Israelites brought by Moses through the
wilderness, and led by Joshua into the conquered possession of their
promised Canaan. Following those prototypes, Paul Krüger is held as
having guided the Boer nation thus far through the mazes of political
troubles, and so also is General Joubert,[17] now their leader in the
conquest, South Africa in its entirety being considered as rightfully
belonging to them. The Orange River stands for Jordan, dividing as yet
the possessions of the people, and the analogy only needs completion by
a Pisgah for President Krüger. That such hallucinations have taken deep
root appears from the fact that the wife of President Krüger dreamt of
the accomplishment of such a typical history, and that her husband had